“It’s early enough that there is probably no penalty yet for companies that are early adopters,” Wilson, practice director for Boston-based market strategy and consulting firm Summit Strategies Inc., told a keynote session Thursday of the DCI’s Mobile Business for the Enterprise conference and Exposition in Chicago.

Wilson notes that only a quarter to a third of companies are underway with some type of wired CRM project  with many reports of difficult implementations -- and that even fewer wireless CRM projects are in progress. But he says the latter include “examples of companies that are receiving advantage.”

Wireless implementations in areas of the enterprise other than CRM have achieved notable returns on investment, Wilson says, citing examples that include cargo handling at airports by American Airlines, field force automation at Northeast Utilities and a consolidation of wireless platforms from 18 devices and multiple operating systems into a single platform at United Parcel Service.